and women like sal, this country will be just fine, thank you. >> i'm good, one direction. what did you learn? >> thank you so much. we wonder where we get these men and women. there's another question we need to ask. where do we get their families? they're forgotten. and it was great. >> right now chuck todd and "the daily rundown" without one direction. from nowhere to nonstarter, house republicans pitch their plan to avoid the fiscal cliff and like the president's plan they don't expect to win over the opposition.

a sfl senate fight. will republicans reject a personal plea from their former leader bob dole. he's making a rare visit to the senate floor to make his case. and now that we've had a whole month to digest that election day data, where you'll find those who voted for every presidential winner since 1956. that's in today's deep dive. i'm chuck todd feeling a little clogged up as you might hear. the fiscal cliff counteroffer has one thing in common.

the differences between the new republican plan and what the white house proposed are stark when it comes to taxes. the gop calls for $800 million in new taxes. it's half of what the white house asked for. republicans to $67 billion. the gop plan changes how security benefits would be calculated. why he favors tax rates instead of eliminating deductions. not enough revenue. less revenue equals more cuts in education.

republicans ruled that out saying the new revenue would not be achieved through higher tax rates which we continue to oppose. they were referring to an erskine bowles plan that he testified to in the fall of 2011. the white house made it clear that's a nonstarter and they won't even respond until the gop puts forth a plan that includes a tax rate hike. the obstacle continues to be republicans who hold out hope. millionaires and billionaires. while it sounds like the two sides are far apart, the budget numbers are not that far apart.

the white house you get close. they say it lacks detail. doon pfeiffer says it does not say which loopholes they would close or savings they would achieve. if the president is rejecting this middle ground offer it is his obligation to present a plan that can pass both chambers of congress. are we at a stalemate who offers something next? house republicans said theirs mirrors one proposed by erskine bowles, the democratic chair of the fiscal position. bowles shot down that suggestion. while i'm flattered the speaker would call something the bowles plan, the approach outlined in the letter speaker boehner sent to the president does not represent the simpson bowles plan nor is it the bowles plan.

harry reid says not only does speaker boehner's proposal delay revenues into 2013, it sets up another destructive fight over the debt ceiling. the senate wasting the public time. house republicans should allow a vote on the senate passed middle income cuts. a discharge petition to force a vote on extending on tuesday at noon. the two sides are still talking informally. last night oklahoma senator tom coburn while berating the white house for rejecting boehner's plan out of hand, ended up criticizing both parties for what looks like brinksmanship right now. >> here is speaker boehner taking a midpoint and offered it and it's already flatly rejected?

we need nothing offered in publ public. nobody should come out of the room until this is solved. >> today state budgets affected by automatic budget cuts scheduled for january 1 will be meeting with the president and congressional leaders at the white house today. the offer is falling flat. it's the middle ground between establishment republicans it's not quite the middle ground going forward into the middle middle but going back to boehner's proposal the conservative groups are linking it to his decision to yank plum committee assignments from what boehner described as uncooperative members. four house members who have a hisses try after it was

determined that they were, quote, not team players, the op told nbc news. in some way it was a low risk act of retribution. he went after three freshman and a north carolina congressman who has never been popular with his house colleagues. the others were tim huelskamp. the gop lead ership might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others is a vindictive move and a sure sign that the gop establishment can not handle disagreement. almost immediately conservative groups lashed out. in a statement, congressman schweikert is free of the last remnants of leverage against them, referring to the other two members of congress that were also stripped of committee assignments. the founder and chairman dick armey resigned yesterday. this is a clear attempt on the part of the republican leadership to punish those in

washington who vote the way they promised their constituents they would. conservative blogger eric erickson on his blog writing on the same day john boehner, eric cantor and kevin mccarthy punished those for standing up for their convictions sold out their own convictions. erickson wasn't the only 0 group. calling it an $800 billion tax hike. the most conservative media outlets have been in boehner's camp, conservative organizations have a lot of sway with some members. bane earp does not want a full fledged rebellion. a few things to keep in mind. number one, any thought boehner didn't believe he had more control over his conference this time than he did two years ago should be set aside. cantor and mccarthy having his

back. he only has to worry if somebody is high profile were somehow to challenge his standing with house republicans. that's not the case. they were in concert on this. does it mean -- send a signal to the white house that this time what boehner says and negotiates goes though it may not be a majority of the majority but boehner is comfortable in the position that he's established. that said, how much is boehner helped by his proposal? his proposal seemed a little bit not quite even close to what boehner and the president were in july of 2011 when the grand b bargain talks fell apart but now you've got conservative criticism of what he did offers as a reminder how difficult it is to find 218 votes in the house. well, what the president set to announce his secretary of state pick, some worry it may be

stretched out now to early next week, senator john kerry desperately wants the job, has stayed very, very quiet. yesterday he exchanged good natured ribbing with senator john mccain at a news conference called for support of a u.n. treaty to support those with disabilities around the world. mccain started it off. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. [ laughter ] >> thank you very much, mr. president. [ laughter ] this is what happens when you get too loose. >> kerry and mccain are working together on the effort to persuade their senate colleagues to ratify the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. as we discussed in the show yesterday, the treaty has run into opposition from more conservative members of the republican party. think of it as two wings of the party inside their isolationists and those who are just anti-u.n.

even as they are internationalists. simply others that don't believe the u.n. should sign on as party to any united nations convention and because a two-thirds super majority is rard to ratify a treaty, that opposition means it will be close and they may lose. yesterday kerry told reporters he is about four votes short but thinks a handful of senators might still be willing to sign on. in an effort to win those 11th hour votes, former senator bob dole who was there when the ada, americans for disability act, was negotiated and signed in the early '90s, is expected to be present on the senate floor or at least right next to the floor when the vote actually takes place. of course dole was just optized at walter reed army medical center last week. his public appearances are very, very rare these days. he'll be honored late they are morning and then he'll be sitting there watching as some senators potentially walk by him

to make that decision to vote against a treaty that he has been campaigning very hard for. the tough time this treaty is having is the latest sign of the growing isolationist party. yesterday the president used a speech celebrating the 20-year effort by retiring senator richard lugar and former democratic senator sam nun. to secure nuclear stockpile, to issue a strong warning to president assad against using chemical weapons. >> i want to make it absolutely clear to assad and those under his command the world is watching. the use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable. >> u.s. officials tell nbc news that syria's government has ordered the chemical sites to

be, quote, prepared. sparking fears that they could be getting ready to mix a deadly nerve gas. so the direct warnings president obama and secretary of state hillary clinton delivered to syria come as that country's ally, russia, signals that the use of chemical weapons is a red line for their own support for syria. joining me now is nbc's chief pentagon correspondent jim jim miklaszewski. a speech that really didn't have anything having to do with what syria, clearly there's intelligence on the ground that has u.s. officials concerned. >> reporter: that's right, chuck. all the latest intelligence indicates that the u.s., nato, and particularly the syrian people are really staring the worst case scenario directly in the face. just about the time rebel forces started to make significant advances in the capital da m damascus, u.s. officials tell nbc news that the assad regime

informed its chemical weapons corps to get prepared. and just about that time, u.s. intelligence noticed a flurry of activity around several of the chemical weapons sites, an indication, perhaps, that the chemical corps is moving two precan cursor chemicals to the same locations to weaponize artillery shells and once you combine those precursor chemicals it creates that deadly nerve gas. now the question is, as president obama threatened, there will be consequences if assad regime does use chemical weapons against its own people. what are those consequences? well, the u.s. military does have several contingency plans in place. right now it appears that the use of ground forces is pretty much out of the question because it would take a massive invasion to try to control those chemical weapon sites. now air strikes are a possibility but, chuck, if you strike those chemical weapon

sites -- >> you don't want to put that in the air. >> reporter: that, too, could spread the deadly chemicals. the most viable option right now may, in fact, be direct air strikes against the assad regime targets themselves perhaps even president assad. >> all right. i want to quickly ask about this iranian claim that they captured a small u.s. drone, u.s. navy, i know, has already said all unmanned air vehicles have been accounted for that are operating in the middle east region. are you hearing anything different? what could iran think it has that it doesn't or is it another country's drone? >> reporter: if you look at iran's video, it is a scan eagle drone which, quite frankly, sort of like honda civics. everybody has one. you can buy them pretty much on the open market. the belief is that they got it from the persian gulf state,

united emirates, which have scan eagle drones like the u.s. navy does. but it's believe d that the iranians may have managed to steal one disassembled or someone even in that government under the table sold them one. they do acknowledge it looks like a scan eagle but it's not american. and they believe the iranians simply somehow got it off the shelf. this is not top shelf. that is horse and buggy technology. >> not even honda civic. all right, all right, jim miklaszewski, at the pentagon this morning. thank you, sir. up next, cliff counting. where is the middle ground you? johnny isaacson will be joining me next. plus, 28 days later, there are still votes being tallied from the presidential election. the very latest on president obama's growing margin of victory and the single best bellwether county in the country.

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we should not be sitting around twiddling our thumbs. the clock is running. we face a fiscal cliff. there are some in this chamber who have said, oh, we need to go off of it. we'll go off of it. we'll pay the price and then we'll finally sit down and do what's right. i would, with all due respect, say that's pretty stupid. >> that was some blunt talk from my next guest, republican

senator from georgia, johnny isaacson. that was two and a half weeks ago. the more things change, the more they stay the same. both the president and house republicans have offered their own solutions to the fiscal cliff. but we're no closer to a deal. joining me now is senator isa isaacson. good morning, senator isaacson. i assume you stand by what you said just two weeks ago. so let me ask you this. the initial offer by speaker boehner, is it fair to say -- is it fair that the white house is calling it an unserious offer since it doesn't do anything on tax rates? >> no, i dent think so at all. i think it's more reflective of a simpson-bowles. it's a first step. i made a living selling houses for 33 years. i don't get people together until they finally sit down 0 at the table and negotiate. it's still too much posturing, too much the president wants it his way, somebody else wants it that way. i believe tom coburn was right.

it's time to sit down in a room, see if we can work this out. going off the cliff would be a stupid idea. >> i want you -- david brooks this morning writes this in "the new york times." republicans have to realize that they are going to cave on tax rates. the only question is what they get in return. do you agree? >> not necessarily at all, because i believe if you raise the base upon which the tax rate is applied, you can raise revenue and keep the rates where they are. >> explain that. let me stop you there. when you raise the base of which the tax rate is applied, explain what you mean. >> capping deductions so you can't use deductions to offset tax obligations. that creates more revenue but the rates stay the same. as erskine bowles commission can go down as much as from 35% to 29% at the upper level. the same thing ronald reagan and tip o'neill did in 1986. in 1986 the top marginal rate it was 70%.

it was lowered to 28%. we can take that approach again. >> you know, you brought up the fact that you are in real est e estate. one of the items that will be on the table is the mortgage deduction and one of the kr criticisms that the white house had, for instance on the boehner plan, is there were no details there on deductions. how do you envision just dealing with the mortgage deduction tax credit? >> well, the idea that i like the most is by capping deductions in the aggregate so you don't pick on one deduction or itemize deductions for mo mortgage interest or for charitable deduction but you have an aggregate that's a cap. maybe it's $35,000, whatever it might be. so you cap the total of deductions. you don't itemize them and pull one out and leave one on the table. >> if we end up going over the cliff, because of this tax rate issue, is it something that republicans ought to say, you know what, we can't deal with

the white house on this but let's go ahead and pass this stopgap which makes the middle class tax rates permanent and then you punt, essentially tom cole's idea there in the house from oklahoma. you punt and negotiate later. >> your time is negotiate is now. it's not time to say we're going to punt. time to negotiate is now. i'm beginning to believe -- i don't know this, i don't have any information to believe it, it appears the president would just as soon we go off the cliff. everybody's taxes go up. sequestration takes place, cut a tree in two in spending and he'll come back and cut taxes for some people and try and claim himself to be the hero. if you do that you're going to have negative gdp for the next quarters of next year and return to recessionary times. >> so nothing can get ton, though, the house could pass that -- could simply pass the making the middle class tax rates permanent? >> they could.

the only way to avert things? >> i'm not in favor of patchwork solutions to a macro problem. whether it's capping deductions or raising rates, entitlements are an issue and we got the deal with entitlements, two-thirds of all federal spending and discretionary spending is part of the problem. all three have to be addressed in a macro plan or you're not going to solve the problem. >> i want to ask you a quick question on susan rice. do you believe the benghazi incident disqualifies her to be secretary of state? >> it will prevent her being confirmed until the white house comes forward with the answerses to all the questions all of us have been asking. what happened on the 16th of september when she went on the talk shows and talked about blaming the attacks in benghazi on an anti-muslim trailer in the united states when, in fact,

we've come to learn that intelligence people knew it was a terrorist raid and we had no explanation as to why we couldn't protect our ambassador and lost our first ambassador in the line of duty since 1979, if those questions aren't answered then there's not going to be a confirmation in my judgment. >> all right. i have to leave it there. georgia republican senator johnny isakson, thanks for coming on. >> thanks, chuck. optimism over the fiscal cliff is fading in washington but not on wall street. they continue to believe a deal is coming. the market rundown is next. and from secretary of state to new york city mayor, michael bloomberg's crazy speculation today allowed hillary clinton's future. remember who the deputy mayor is in new york city. maybe it's not so crazy. but first, today's trivia question. how many current senators are named john? any spelling of the name counts. you ever notice that some people just have a knack

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a packed radar this morning. new reports that hillary clinton got a special job pitch. apparently so did david petraeus and neither one took the advice. new york city mayor michael bloomberg's successor will have big shoes to fill according to "the new york times." bloomberg called secretary of state hillary clinton a few months ago to encourage her to enter the 2013 new york city mayoral race. but reportedly told the mayor she has no interest in the job. as deputy mayor there howard wolf son, former senior adviser to hillary clinton's presidential campaign in 2008. mayor bloomberg isn't the only 0 one giving out advice. this is great.

it's bob woodward, heads are exploding as i speak. let me get to the story. woodward reports that roger ales, the chairman and founder of fox news, encouraged general david petraeus to run against obama in the 2012 election. last spring asked fox news analyst to make the pitch while she was traveling with petraeus. in a recording of the conversation between mcfarland and petraeus mcfarland can be heard saying that ales advises petraeus to reject becoming cia director and accept nothing less than chairman of the joint chiefs. mcfarland suggestses petraeus should resign and run for president if obama did not offer the joint chiefs job. petraeus is heard saying, quote, it's never going to happen. never, no, it's never going to happen. boy, and we wonder why roger ales gets accused of being a campaign strategist in network

news division clothing. finally, attorney general eric holder's chief of staff announced he will be leaving the justice department. he was named by republicans and their probes into the fast and furious case. he has been holder's chief of staff since 2011 and worked on and off for the justice department since starting as a federal prosecutor in 1982. how is wall street react iing t the house republican plan? let's get to the market rundown. joining me now becky quick. so you guys are calm, right? remain calm, all is well. >> reporter: yeah, all is well. things are going well. actually it's good news that you have two different plans on the table. that means you can make progress even if it seems like those two plans are worlds apart. hey, they have a blueprint for how they can get to a compromise, get to middle ground. one thing we've been watching, how firms are acting differently ahead of the fiscal cliff. you have a lot of companies, over 110 now, that have talked about how they're going to be

doing special dividends or increased dividends in the fourth quarter just in the last few weeks or a year because they want to make sure they bring the dividends from next year into this year. if we do go over the fiscal cliff, dividends will be taxed at more than 44% versus the 15% they're taxed at now. so companies are trying to find a way for shareholders to get in a little bit early no matter what happens with the fiscal cliff. >> all right. you know what, you can take the two plans, are split them down the middle. you sort of see the compromise. >> $1.2 trillion, exactly. by the way, you sound terrible. you're stuffed up. take care of your cold. >> thank you. up next, the deep dive into the latest election tally and what we know now about both parties.

the results of the 2012 election still aren't official. that won't happen until electors meet to cast and certify their vote. take a deep dive into some of the more interesting stories hidden inside the numbers. one man in america is still tracking this. david wasserman over at the political report has been keeping track of the national vote count and here is what we have so far. thanks to mr. wasserman who is my guest shortly. as you can see so far, look at the president. 50.9%. round it up 51%. look where romney sits. that will haunt mitt romney for a long time, 47%. let's move on 0. on the swings states, check this

out here. having a little bit of a slow response rate. in the swing states, look at where president obama's percentages are at. he did better in the swing states than overall. mitt romney's 47.2%. 12 swings states broadly outlined. we throw in pennsylvania and a minnesota among 0 others. the nonswing states, the president still has over 50.7% there. mitt romney, there's that number again, 47%. let's move on to the margin of victory in the swing states. the president had a four-point margin of victory in the nonswing states. it was closer to three points. let's move on to where he won and how it counted. here, 62% of electoral votes for the president. 332 out of 538. just six presidents, six presidents, have won at least two elections with 51% of the vote or more and not since eisenhower has any president done that. the president, though, only won

22% of all counties. that's the lowest percentage out of 689. that's the lowest percentage of counties that any one president had since 2008. when he had 28% of counties there. believe it or not, a bunch of red states were improved, alaska, maryland, mississippi, new jersey, all actually improved his performance. alaska, not palin. not on the ticket. increased african-american vote. increased african-american vote. mississippi, the same answer and new jersey you have to think a little bit of the sandy effect. now as you can see showing those percentages here, big jumps. alaska was the biggest jump of all places and thousand this is where i want to bring in david wasserman of the cook political report. this is my favorite thing here, david. take us through what is unique about mitt romney and paul ryan

that no other losing presidential ticket pulled off. >> chuck, this may be the only ticket in history both candidates have not only lost their home states but their home counties and home towns. chuck, that's remarkable. >> massachusetts, wisconsin, middlesex county, belmont, massachusetts. i guess that's what you end up having with two blue state guys running on the republican ticket. some conservatives say it doesn't matter if you get blue state guys. doesn't seem to pull off swing voters. we move on to a couple of other things here and this is something you have started doing. trying to break up the cultural differences between the two parties. counties where there are cracker barrel and whole foods. a few have both. northern virginia. >> just a few. >> prince william or loudoun

county. >> i was reciting the statistic that obama won 77% of counties with the whole foods market and only 29% of counties with the cracker barrel or old country store to a group of democratic young professionals. a young woman raised her hand and asked, did you mean crate and barrel? i've never heard of a cracker barrel. there's a cultural divide, a bubble mentality plaguing both parties. they live in alternate universes. it didn't always used to be this way. 1992 when bill clinton unseated george h.w. bush, these same counties, won 60% with the whole foods market. 40% with cracker barrel. so that was a 20-point gap. it's a 48-point gap now. >> there are some older votes, maybe the old fdr coalition that have shifted to the republican party. the democratic coalition of younger voters, hispanics, african-american, is just growing in size. >> if you had to pick a couple of counties that would epitomize

that shift, you look at ohio and the white working class counties along the ohio river, coal country, belmont county, ohio, gave john kerry 52% of the vote in 2004. obama only won 44.7% this time around. if you had to look at a county that captures where democrats are doing better and better, it's probably in your home state, chuck, osceola, florida. outside of orlando, kissimmee, st. cloud, huge growing puerto rican population. consider that john kerry only won 47% of the vote there in 2004. guess where obama was this year? 61.7%. >> i challenge anybody to find another county with that dramatic of an uptick, that size of a county. speaking of counties, the bellwether presidential -- now the state with the longest streak is ohio. missouri lost its standing a couple of cycles ago. ohio, every winning election back to '64 if that's correct,

right? '60 was the last time they were wrong. >> if anyone has been to terre haute, indiana, they have successfully predicted the winner of every presidential election back to 1956 and guess what the total was this year? it's one of the first counties to report votes on election night, too, 19,712 for obama. 19,349 for romney. >> so it overperformed -- or underperformed for the president? >> but uncanny accuracy in prediction. >> one thing i took away from the swing states versus the nonswing states which i think is something republicans ought to be aware, where the democrats can implement their get out the vote, this is, i believe -- even in losing elections they have overperformed in the swing

states. bush in 2000 and 2004. >> this is proof that obama ran a better campaign in the states where the campaigns really mattered. but what's remarkable to me is that obama was able to get out his vote in such a concentration of places. democrats are really clustered at the presidential level. they can win some of the swing states by winning a very small -- >> 22% of counties total. >> the map is redder today. so if you look at that divide, we may be moving to a new normal where democrats and particularly nonwhite voters are sufficient in swing states, allow democrats to win statewide. >> and they're the presidential party and perhaps a senate party but the republicans then can gerrymander their way for house control for years and years to come. >> they are so clustered in the urban areas and college towns, democrats won a million more votes for house than republicans this year and only won 201 -- >> say that again.

a million more house votes. a million more people cast votes for democratic members of the house, congress republicans. >> the total house popular vote. so democrats -- >> basically a landslide in controlling the house. >> exactly. and so the house is rigged. we may be moving to this new normal. >> the only man in america still tra tracking this. thank you, sir. our gaggle will be here next. loaded potato. when are we going to have a loaded fiscal cliff deal? [ telephones ringing ] at chevy's year-end event, we have 11 vehicles that offer an epa-estimated 30 mpg highway or better. yeah? hey. hey. where's your suit? oh, it's casual friday. oh. [ male announcer ] chevy's giving more. now get a 2013 malibu ls for around $199 per month,

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despite a bipartisan effort, protecting the rights of people with disabilities will have a hard time getting the necessary votes today. two of the treaty's most prominent supporters argued the issue is misunderstood, misrepresented, and mired in old man politics. >> this treaty extends to some 650 million people with disabilities around the world. that's the model. people either misunderstand or choose to misrepresent. >> we knew it would be a close vote because it's caught up in up unpolitics. >> a group that opposes the disability treaty, so, tripp, as promised, yesterday we were speaking with some folks and you wanted to explain in your proper

form your opposition to the treaty so why do you oppose this treaty? >> we appreciate you having us on. well, your guest yesterday, governor thornberg, said this would extend the ada to 50 million people around the world. that's not true. if you replayed what he said, he contradicted himself and said it's really not that binding. there's nothing to see here, why should -- no one should oppose it. the story everyone needs to understand is we've been a leader in the rights for the disabled around the world. we will not sign the treaty. we'll give leadership to some so-called experts on disabilities in geneva every year that tells us what to do. i think there's a sovereignty i issue had there. we don't need to seek leadership. we've been the leader on the issue for decades. >> is it a sense where the american business community should know it's a level playing fie field? so here in the united states they know they have to abide by

the ada act? why shouldn't they know that it's -- that they are doing business in the same way around the world? >> countries that want to give rights to the disabled, are free to sign the treaty and get to work, pass the same walls we've passed the last 20 years or so. there's nothing stopping these countries from doing this anyway. it's not us signing a treaty does not bind any country or make think country do anything. so we don't really see the point really other than giving experts more authority. >> are you going to win? do you think you have the vote? >> i think we're about four or five votes ahead of them right now. i'm not predicting it just yet. we'll know at noon. >> you follow the senate po politics closely, what we're seeing is sort of a growing divide inside the republican party between sort of the old foreign policy guard, versus this new foreign policy guard and some led by jon kyl who is not an isolationist, if you will. there is some isolationist views there but it's an interesting divide sitting in the senate.

>> it's not even a divide anymore. some aren't part of the caucus anymore. with this issue, part of it is to say that there's skepticism, overall skepticism of the u.n. among some of the republican party, which is probably an understatement. this digs deeper into that deep rooted skepticism of the body in general. >> all right. i want to move to fiscal cliff here. there's a mix of public opinion and public policy here. democrats feel as if they're winning the public opinion war but that isn't going to get them 218 votes. so at what point does winning the public opinion sort of become diminishing returns? >> well, i don't think it comes to diminishing returns. you see consistently that the exit polls show that people -- not just support president obama but support seeing the wealthy pay a little bit more on taxes, half of the electorate said that. everybody should pay a little bit more so a clear majority said that. consistently "the washington post" poll showed right after

the election and again now that are more people will blame republicans and the president if there is no deal. so i think republicans need to really tread carefully. look, i think it hurts everybody politically if we go over the fiscal cliff. republicans will pay a larger price. it's about making sure they don't drive themselves off a middle class cliff by digging their heels into lower rates. actual hadly have lower rates for the wealthy than the wealt >> tripp, you work for a group -- you're saying, hey, we stand for principle but you're not there to win elections. you're there to win policy fights. >> right. >> the fact is, if republicans could be -- some concern is republicans pulling away from the vote. >> hopefully good policy makes good politics. in this case, if we can see the tax issue, that's not going to fix the problem. the drivers of the debt is spending but also is is entitlement and boehner punting, capitulated to the white

house -- >> capitulation on the white house doesn't even -- >> that's a pretty -- >> well, we're all going to put our heads in the sand and say that entitlement are not the drivers of the deficit. >> you don't think he put enough detail on the entitlements? >> no. >> we'll ask him that when he comes back. our question of the day is how many current senators are named john? any spelling of the name counts. the answer is 12. isakson, kyl, boozman, mccain, tester, thune, reed, and rockefeller. that's not counting the two senators whose last name is johnson. you didn't have to come over! actually, honey, i think i did... oh? you did? whoa, ladies, easy. hi. cascade kitchen counselor. we can help avoid this with cascade complete pacs.

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tripp baird, margie omero, and gonzales. margie, on the disagreements towards stevens on one big issue, that was immigration. rhodes said he regretted it for that three-week period. >> yes, i think -- >> do you think it was bigger than any other moment? >> i don't know if i would say it that far. it certainly adds to the sense that republicans are not fighting for all americans. and when you have them take that really hard turn to the right t. also -- it's a corrosive element. you see messina. when you talk about immigration,

that really changes how people view the republican party, how they view other latino voters, their fellow american voters, and i think it's damaging. >> you talk about tone, that some hispanic voters said that they may be culturally more conservative. >> right. it was that personal disconnect. but what i think is interesting is, what republicans think they have to say to get the nomination. do they really have to do that? would he have lost a nomination without -- >> do you think it's going to start fading away? >> no. >> do you think it's going to be a hot button? >> i think next year we'll see. >> shameless plugs. >> shameless plugs. >> go to jackson website if you want to get involved in the grassroots efforts for the conservative movement. >> margie? >> i have a post on huffington post with republican poster bob carpenter for mayors against illegal guns but the nra influence is on the way and they want stronger gun laws. >> last week, our softball team,

category 5, three straight championships, 30-game winning streak. >> 30-game winning streak. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." coming up next, chris jansing. bye-bye. maybe new buildings? what about updated equipment? they can help, but recent research shows... ... nothing transforms schools like investing in advanced teacher education. let's build a strong foundation. let's invest in our teachers so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. or treat gas with these after you get it. now that's like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. oh, somebody out there's saying, now i get it! take beano before and there'll be no gas.

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